Sparking students' curiosity through direct interaction with human anatomy

Getting the chance to view normal and pathological human organs in a state-of-the-art anatomy laboratory as a high schooler is a rare opportunity. Yet last week, 1,000 students from 31 high schools across Ohio did just that. Attending The Ohio State University College of Medicine’s Anatomy Outreach Days expanded classroom learning in anatomy and physiology through hands-on interaction. As they were led through demonstrations, they also got to touch and compare textures and sizes of different anatomical organs and specimens. 

The annual program, led by Pilard Hanna, PhD, gives students the chance to see and feel human anatomy with their own eyes and hands to gain a deeper understanding of the workings of the human body. Dr. Hanna directs Outreach & Community Programming in the college’s Division of Anatomy and is an assistant professor of Anatomy Dental Education.  

Over four hours on Anatomy Outreach Days, the high schoolers rotated through laboratory stations filled with different organs and specimens donated to the college’s Body Donation Program, interacted with kidneys, hearts and muscle anatomy, learned CPR skills and got to try out virtual reality simulations and ultrasound procedures in The Ohio State University Health Sciences Library.  

This year’s program featured: 

• First-ever attendees from Granville High School, which this year offered its first Anatomy and Physiology course to juniors and seniors. 
• The chance for students to participate in a research study testing the effectiveness of different teaching modalities. One half of the study is Draw-A-Heart, where participants are led by a medical illustrator to draw a heart and its main features and blood flow paths, and the other half is learning heart anatomy using donated heart specimens. The study is a collaboration between the Division of Anatomy and medical illustrators with the Health Sciences Library.  
• Gathering qualitative and quantitative data from study participants through pre- and post- multiple-choice tests and surveys before they rotated between both study halves. The researchers will use this data to inform program planning and expansion.  
• Anatomy lessons of normal and pathological heart, lung and muscle specimens, led by learners in medicine and the health sciences. 
• Feedback from study participants that emphasized the value of being able to go beyond textbook images and actually see heart features such as the atrium and ventricles; getting the chance to draw the heart’s shape and main components in a manageable way that brought deeper understanding when they saw and learned about a normal heart; the impact of viewing and interacting with hearts of different sizes and discolorations due to various diseases and one that had a pacemaker attached.  

The Anatomy Outreach Days event, staffed by 150 graduate, undergraduate medical and dental school student volunteers, provides high school students with a unique level of exposure to medicine and anatomy. This year, a science teacher from Granville High School said she believes her students now have a distinct view into various career options to consider pursuing. Other teachers reported being amazed by how much the students learned from collaborating with the medical illustrator and practitioners in the fields of urology, nephrology, internal medicine and emergency medicine.